Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Kind of a hectic time at work so we opted for a short break in a nearby location. Landed on Madison Beach Hotel in Connecticut. There are things to do around here, but we may spend our time just perfecting our signature lounging by the Sound. 

Beautiful day yesterday which we had the pleasure of spending with our friends Christine and Tina at the new Brooklyn Historical Society Dumbo at 55 Water St.  It's a small gallery showing some interesting potos of industrial Brooklyn and Coney Island. The building is worth the visit it has a deck up top (5th floor) with buikt in benches and spectacular views of the river. Cafes on the ground floor. And check out the offices in the building- imagine going to work with that view every day! 

Of course Linda was most taken with the glass elevator's reflections. 

Yesterday we met up with Maxine in Manhattan. We needed to find a new sofa for Linda's mom so that we can have a place for her new home aide to sleep. Of course first we had to have brunch at Linda and Ma ie's favorite spot, Bubby's.  While waiting, we hung out on the bench and showed off my Science March T-shirt.  We noticed a nearby store had put out a bowl of bisquits for passing pooches, but a different sort of New Yorker was sampling the wares. We also watched as teams of kids checked into a Pokemon stop on a scavenger hunt (next stop was the Ghostbusters firehouse 2 blocks away). 

Next stop was a search of our own. The new sofa had to be small enough to fit through a narrow NYC apt. door, comfortable and easy enough to sleep on every night, and deliverable within 2 weeks. Not an easy task, but our salesperson, Antwane at Room and Board was able to help us accomplish it (I was forced to lie down on the job and check out the various options

We also made the acquaintance of a King Charles Cavalier spaniel testing out a chaise long. We were surprised at first that the pup was welcome in the store. But according to his human companion, he had already sold two sofas and was being courted to help out at the store in the future. 

There are 8 million stories in this city.......

Benny is just back from the dog kennel. Pretty exhausted after a week of non-stop socializing 

Which is not really a district. More of a complex of buildings that were once an old distillery.  Now restored with shops, restaurants and art galleries. The most interesting to me was a shop for and run by deaf people. Most of the folks inside were signing so it was of course very quiet. I bought some delicious smelling tea to take home. One of the coolest things there was an almost life sized puppet/doll that was designed so that someone could put their hands through the sleeves and then sign for the puppet instead of speaking. We watched a little girl and her parents using it. She was loving it. It didn't feel right to take a picture so here's a close approximation I found on another web page, but imagine the puppet twice as big and instead of putting your hands into gloves as in this picture, there were only sleeves and you put your whole arms through so that your hands become the puppet's hands. Pretty smart design.  

We also watched some fellows starting the process of making sake

Here are some pictures from the Distillery complex.  The brains in the glass cases are kind of like the cows that other cities have done, where different people offer their unique take on how it should be designed. Why brains I'm not sure. 

We loved the Chihuly exhibit. It was mostly set in an all black space and floodlit. Not as organic as some of his garden works, but very dramatic. The room with the glass ceiling had mats on the floor so you could lie down and look up at the glass  

We took our first Toronto subway ride today - to the Royal Ontario Museum. Very different feeling from a NYC subway. For one thing, no doors between cars so it's like one long corrodor inside

Here's how you know you've arrived at the Museum Station

We wanted to see the Chihuly glass installation, but first we had to check out the building. Here are the old and new entrances. Anyone who knows Linda will see that I was well asvised to find myself a nice spot in the shade because she and her camera would be busy for a while

Happily I had some entertainment 

We'd heard about this on our various tours, but not seen it till today. For $200 you can don a red jumpsuit, hook yourself to a rail and hang out over the edge if the CN tour. Today we were having cocktails on the balcony when we looked up and sure enough, there was a group of people doing it. Even with Linda's super zoom lens, they're still tiny which gives you an idea how far up they are. Here's a link to a video of the process from up there. I can assure you we will not be filming it ourselves.   

Linda picked our destination for today, but I got to choose the lunch spot. We went to Banu, an Iranian restaurant which was spectacular. We started with sour cherry juice and pomegranate juice, mast o khiar (a yogurt dish with cucumber, rose petals, walnuts,and raisins) and salad e sekanjebin (grilled romaine hearts with pomegranate seeds, fried mint, sheep's milk cheese, and sekanjebin-  sweetened syrup with vinegar and mint).  The main couse was zereshk polo va morgh (turmeric and saffron braised chicken with barberry saffron rice). We took pictures of all the dishes except the last which we were enjoying so much that we were halfway through before we realized that we had failed to capture its beauty. The rice part is called wedding rice because its so beautiful and "jewel-like” and therefore suitable for a wedding party. So the last picture is cribbed from the internet, but ours looked very similar, though a smaller plate.  The service was very good and our waiter took a lot of time to explain the dishes to us. She seemed to really enjoy sharing her culture's cuisine with us even though she must have answered the same questions many times.